The Convention Dimension: Tekko 2021 Day 4 and Closing Thoughts

Richard: Sunday - the last day! I always feel sad on the last day of a convention; the magical convention world fades away to the workweek, and the last day is often focused on saying "goodbye" to everything. There's a dreariness to it, perhaps a coziness too, but to me, it's mostly grey liminality.

Kaiti: The final con day was a bit of a blur for me. This isn’t unusual, as conventions’ final days often seem like a burst bubble, the crowd and panels all emptier and less intense. But this year it also meant I spent most of it in chronic pain and struggling to keep up. All I really remember is getting another bubble tea, and finding one of my friends from anime fandom days of decades past who was in town to work some booths and guest support.

Richard: Sunday, December 13th at Tekko was not much different, though the flea market is always a rush for me! I zoomed into the building and went right there. There was some seriously awesome stuff, much better than the other one I went to a few years ago (I also got to that one late, so this probably isn't the best comparison!). I ended up with a plush edamame, a tape of the Battle Arena Toshinden OVA, figures of Sakura from Street Fighter and Boo and Chain-Chomp from Super Mario, and some amazing Pokémon figures of blobbily humorous quality. It was great to speak with both the couple selling the tape and Sakura figure and the guy with the Pokémon figures. The former were both a little older, and we bonded over our love of classic Capcom games. They were dressed as Chun-Li and Chris Redfield. I really love seeing the Street Fighter cosplays! The other guy didn't have a fancy costume, but he told me a funny story about seeing strange Broly figures at a few Mexican restaurants in the southern United States. I ended up telling our friend, Paul, about this, as he is from Mexico. He was unfamiliar, but we found some pics of the sombrero-wearing Legendary Super Saiyan. They are super funny!

Richard: After the flea market, we had planned to meet up with a friend. The meetup didn't happen until the very end of the day. I had already wanted to go to some of the panels from some of the industry guests because I have some interest in "the industry". So we headed back to the panel rooms. First, we saw Caitlin Glass talk about voice acting for video games, and afterwards we saw James Landino talk about composing for video games. Both panels were interesting, though I can't say either was particularly helpful to me. It was interesting to hear Glass talk about her various roles at Funimation and voicing Street Fighter characters Cammy and Decapre, and I was interested to hear Landino talk about how he got started with games as a teenager. Both mentioned that they got somewhat lucky in regards to landing the roles that they had, so it was kind of a bummer as well. I really doubt that was anybody's intention - it's really just a personal hangup I have!

Richard: Before we left, we went back to the arcade. I finished Mr. Driller! That was a lot of fun, so I was feeling a lot better. We also finally met up with our friend and did a quick sweep of the vendor hall. Soon after, it was back to the normal world.

Kaiti: Overall it was a great convention experience that rivaled many of my favorite years at various conventions around the eastern side of the US. One of the most memorable moments of the convention was the cosplayer of Fantasy from The Pagemaster. This was a particularly touching cosplay for me, as someone who fought tooth and nail to see that film in a media-restricted household. We also saw a walking Rick Roll, which brought me right back to the heyday of my convention years. My first convention was Anime Central in 2002, but I was going to a lot of them between 2005 and 2011 in particular. I had significantly less crowd anxiety at Tekko 2021, found some awesome merch such as a replacement for a long-lost Kuwabara keychain, and the overall convention veneer was relaxed and enjoyable as well as wonderfully COVID-cautious.

Richard: Tekko 2021 was a lot of fun! I am so glad that I went. The cosplays were amazing, and I loved seeing all of the cool merchandise, especially the stuff created by indie artists! I've added some extra pics from some of the vendors at the end here - there were too many to fit in the last post! Other than cool vendors, I really enjoyed the arcade selection, spanning the 1990s to the modern-day and featuring a nice selection of rhythm, racing, and fighting games. The panels we saw were cool. I do wish that Tekko could get some other celebrity guests beyond voice actors, but I am sure that that could be quite expensive. I did have a few small issues this year. The cars seemed oddly placed with all of the vendors, the lack of a good schedule was less than ideal, and the hours on badges were a little off too. For the last of these points, it seems that there was some confusion between the convention center and Tekko, and the convention center staff started to close rooms about 30 minutes early. It wasn't the worst thing; I was just really trying to squeeze in as much as I could. I think that all of these points related to the struggles the administration went through scheduling and running a convention with an ongoing pandemic, but, honestly, it all went pretty well, all things considered. I was really, really happy to see the safety protocols in place, and 99% of attendees I encountered did wear masks appropriately. It was really refreshing, and it made me feel safe being there. I can't wait to come back in 2022!